Loss Of Avaiability

Denial of service attacks cause in the loss of network availability for authorized users and devices. Denial of service attacks block authorized user access to system resources and network applications. Besides the typical DoS attacks directed against LANs and Internet services, Bluetooth devices are also susceptible to signal jamming. Bluetooth devices share bandwidth with microwave ovens, cordless phones, and other wireless networks and thus are exposed to interference. Malicious users can interfere with the flow of information by using devices that transmit in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Disrupting the routing protocol prevents ad hoc network devices from negotiating the network’s dynamic topologies. Remote users may encounter jamming more frequently than on-site users. Remote users must contend with the same interference that users experience in the office. Further, since the remote environment is uncontrolled, remote devices are more likely to be in close immediacy to devices that are intentionally or unintentionally jamming their signals. Another threat associated with ad hoc devices is a battery exhaustion attack. This attack attempts to disable a device by draining its battery. A malicious user continually sends requests to the device asking for data transfers (assuming the user is part of the network topology) or asking the device to create a network. Although this type of attack does not compromise network security, it ultimately prevents the user from gaining access to the network, because the device cannot function. (Juha T. Vainio, May 25, 2000)